The present invention relates to self-adjusting inspection apparatus, and more particularly, to such apparatus for inspecting bolt-holes of various sizes.
Conventional machinery, such as aircraft engines, typically include a plurality of bolt-holes. For many applications, it is necessary to inspect the quality of such bolt-holes. For example, one such inspection technique involves the insertion of an eddy current probe into the bolt-hole which is to be inspected. The eddy current probe includes a probe head having sensor coils located thereon. For accurate eddy current inspection, it is necessary that the sensor coils make firm contact with the bolt-hole interior surface.
One conventional technique for providing the necessary firm contact is to manually wedge the probe head so as to fit the particular bolt-hole which is to be inspected. This wedging technique is often undesirable for industry applications, such as in the manufacture of aircraft engines, where the relatively large variation in bolt-hole sizes renders the technique awkward and time-consuming. More particularly, the variation in bolt-hole size is often such that a probe appropriately wedged to fit one bolt-hole may be too large or too small to fit other bolt-holes. Indeed, in a manual inspection, the probe is generally repeatedly removed and rewedged to fit the other bolt-holes. Further, in view of the need for repeated wedging, this technique is clearly not amenable to an automated inspection system.
Accordingly, it is a general object of this invention to provide improved inspection apparatus.
Another object of the present invention is to provide self-adjusting bolt-hole inspection apparatus.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such inspection apparatus for inspecting bolt-holes of various sizes.